African elephants use names to call each other, study suggests

Wild African elephants may use individualized calls that resemble human names to communicate with each other, according to a new study. While dolphins and parrots are known to mimic sounds to address specific individuals, elephants in Kenya have been found to go even further by using unique, name-like calls to identify each other. The study analyzed recordings of different types of elephant rumbles and found that the acoustic structure of the calls varied depending on the recipient. The findings suggest that elephants have the cognitive ability to learn arbitrary sounds and associate them with specific individuals, similar to humans using names.